resolutions

So I said I wouldn't be back until the new year,  but here I am. 
I love this week.  The one between Christmas and New Years.  It seems (from reading others blogs) that many other people do too.  The one thing I do have a problem with though, is I always seem to want to make my resolutions on about 26th or 27th.  But the 'type-A' in me wants to wait until the 1st of January.  But by this time, I have often lost all my post-indulgent-christmas resolve and I fail to make those resolutions and set any goals.  So I have decided to do so today.
I've already allocated two journals (decorated by me) to myself in 2011.  The white one has become my food and exercise diary.  It will be written in everyday.  I find this helps me a lot in being sensible about my eating.  I still eat what I want, but when I have to write it down, suddenly the urge often disappears.  There's something about writing '6 biscuits' down in black and white that makes it easier to stop at one.
The black journal is for my goals, resolutions, dreams and ideas for 2011.  So far it contains the following:
* Read 12 books
* Loose 10kgs
* Get my full drivers license
* Make a softie
* Sew a dress
* Do some paid work
So as you can see, some will be easy, and some will be a challenge.  I've given each goal its own page, so I can write down any ideas and plans as I go.
I've also decided to do some habit style blogging on here in 2011.  I'll be treating these posts as kind of a personal online journal, and as such comments will be closed on these posts.
I hope you had a lovely Christmas and are relaxing and enjoying some time with family and friends as we head into the new year.  Have you made any resolutions yet?

I was victorious

FYI, I doubled the flour and lowered the oven temp to 150c

Well.  2010 is nearing its end.  What a year it has been.  In a good way.  And I have this lovely blog to look back on a whole heap of little moments that otherwise probably would have just slipped by. 
I'm going to sign off for the year here...I'll be back sometime in the new year.  Take care all, and have a lovely holiday season xo

In which my baking ego is brought down to earth.

Yeah so I was feelin' pretty pleased with myself after making these.  Feeling pretty cooool. 
And then last night, I made these...

Yeah.  They were supposed to look like this.  I've re-read the recipe about 16 times and I still have no idea where I went wrong...
I also made another batch of macarons which were no where near as beautiful as the first lot.  I think there may have been some beginners luck involved in that first magical batch.  Sigh.

This leads me to some hints I have learnt along the way for dealing with baking disasters.  Firstly, when baking a new recipe that involves more than one tray (like you've made two trays of biscuits etc) bake one tray first to see how it turns out.  I did this with the chocolate mess you see above, and was able to scrape the second tray load back into the bowl and add more flour, which improved things a lot.  If you bake something and it doesn't taste great or it flops try making truffles.  This works with not so nice muffins or cakes, just crumble into a bowl, make a chocolate-y sauce, then mix well, form into balls and roll in coconut.  No one will ever know.  With dodgy meringues (or in my case macarons) my favourite fix is to crumble them into some pretty glasses, and top with a mix of lemon curd and vanilla custard, and a blob of cream!  Yummo!

Wardrobe Wednesday

Has moved!  Miss Bonnie has taken over hosting duties - so get your outfits on and your cameras out!  Post your links in the comments on her post every Wednesday! 

I was brave.

Yesterday was my sister-in-law's (aka my bff) birthday.  Something extra special was in order.  So I got brave and decided I was going to make macarons (not to be confused with coconut macaroons).  I have been contemplating attempting them for ages, since I saw this post over on Emily's blog.  It looked like she had done a heap of research, so I decided to go with the recipe she used and followed her recommendations...

My macaron has 'feet'!!!  That's the little crunchy edge at the bottom, an essential feature I'm told.

So as you can see I call this a success!!!  (Though I wish I'd turned that broken one round before I took that last photo).  These were vanilla macarons with white chocolate/milk chocolate filling.  Mmm.  They were pretty good, but there was a bit of faffing around (aging egg whites, leaving them to set before baking, whizzing the almond fine enough and sifting...)  I will definitely make them again, but I think I'll save them for special occasions.  If you are going to attempt them, give yourself plenty of time, and follow all of the good advice in Emily's post I linked to above. 

pikelets + berries =

= happy baby

sneak peek

It can be hard to show Christmas crafting on here, as the recipients may be reading!  Here is a sneak peek of what I've been working on for the last couple of evenings.

 ps. new giveaway up over here!

more Christmas stuff

I made our Christmas cards last night.  They were very easy and very fun to make.  Maybe one will be appearing in your letterbox sometime soon...

things and stuff

I had another market yesterday!  It was way more successful than last time, but still left me a little deflated.  I guess I just set my hopes too high...oh well, I'll be back next week!

Some hair pins are going up in the shop as I write (yeah, multi-tasking!) so if you're interested get in quick, as I'll be taking them to market next weekend.

Hope you're having a lovely Sunday, I'm looking forward to a bbq tea tonight!  Yummo!

PS.  some of you wanted to know more about my xmas decorations from the last post, so here goes...the pink ceramics stars and angel in the first pic came from a local craft fair last year, and I strung them up on an old wreath with lace and ribbon.  I made the patchwork table runner last year, while heavily pregnant!   The little xmas trees are this years creation as you probably know.   The little stuffed gingham reindeer was a gift, and those gorgeous cross stitch ornaments came from the lovely Ella, the hearts in that photo are store bought.  And I made the bunting last year, sewing at my dining table, while a brand new baby slept in her moses basket at the other end of the table!   My mum was so amazed I could sew without waking her up! xo

hints of Christmas

I'm actually feeling quite festive this year!  As far as decorations and stuff goes anyway!   Usually my decorations don't go up till mid December.  One thing that I haven't got into yet this year though is the buying.  I'm pretty organised as a rule, and would generally have bought most of my gifts by now.  But this year, I've only got a couple.  I just feel like no one really needs anything.  Really they don't.   And I don't have enough money to buy them some great, quality thing they would like, so then it's like do I just buy some crappy gesture gift rather than get them nothing.  Arrgh.  I don't have any ideas (or enough time left) to do handmade, and I find this hard to do with family.  They already have already had heaps of handmade gifts over the years...  I was going to do food baskets for everyone with some yummy things to eat, but when I was checking stuff out at the supermarket I realised this was a very expensive way to go!!  Food items (particularly yummy special stuff) adds up VERY quickly!  So it's back to the drawing board for me.  I think I'll make a cuppa and just stare at my pretty decorations and procrastinate for a bit longer.